Richard Davis: A fresh foreign policy

Posted
Thursday, December 3, 2015 4:58 am

By Richard Davis

Potential Bernie Sanders' votes for his bid for the presidency may be in jeopardy because of doubt about his ability to execute a solid foreign policy for the United States. What people seem to think is that even though they like Bernie more than Hillary on all other issues, they feel safer voting for her because of her foreign policy experience. I think this is an extremely flawed argument.

Obama and Bill Clinton did not have significant foreign policy experience and they managed to handle world affairs for the U.S. well. The second Bush president, however, managed to mess up the whole world and I believe all of the foreign policy experience in the world would not have resulted in better outcomes for such an inept President who failed on just about every domestic and foreign front.

Hillary Clinton became a major player on the world stage of foreign affairs and the world is now in more chaos than at any other time in human history. She represents everything that is wrong with foreign policy.

A 2014 article in The American Thinker by Jonathan Levin points out many of the Clinton failures as Secretary of State. "Notwithstanding her recent critiques of Obama's performance, Clinton's failures as Secretary of State helped bring war to Europe, an arms race to Asia, and inferno to the Middle East. The U.S. and its international standing are weaker for Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. Clinton's mistakes began early, with her contribution to the misconceived and poorly executed Russia Reset."

Levin goes on to make the case that while supporting Obama policies Clinton set the stage for the power pedestal that Russia's Putin now stands on. "In the first of what would become a pattern, the U.S. sacrificed allies' interests to a rival in the fatuous hope that the rival would feel some sort of gratitude or obligation in return. The Wall Street Journal's scathing editorial has proven prescient. The Journal warned that bowing to Russian pressure would only encourage it to demand ever more concessions and that "[n]ext time, perhaps, the West can be seduced into trading away the pro Western government of Georgia, or even Ukraine."

He goes on to explain that, "The Journal continued that 'inclusion in NATO and EU was supposed to have (ended great power use of Eastern and Central Europe as bargaining chips), but Russia's new assertiveness, including its willingness to cut off energy supplies in winter and invade Georgia last year, is reviving powerful fears.' The Journal and a litany of foreign policy commentators rightly predicted that Putin would take such gestures only as an invitation to aggression."

Clinton has had her chance to make the world a better place and she has proven that she is not up to the task. She represents the old guard and this country cannot rely on old relationships and failed foreign policy when the next President takes office.

Sanders is untested in foreign policy but he represents a new way of looking at the world and that is exactly what Americans and those fighting senseless battles all over the world need. Voters can be quite dumb. We only need to look at the support that a clown like Donald Trump is receiving.

If any of the Republican candidates wins the White House, Americans can be pretty sure that this country will be fighting new wars in new places all over the world. A Clinton presidency would not be much better because she believe that her past experience should guide future decisions.

The only way that Americans can be assured that the world will be a better and safer place during the tenure of the next President is to elect a leader who has not been part of the problems but one who represents the best hope for sensible solutions. Sanders is that person.

Richard Davis is a registered nurse. He writes from Guilford and welcomes comments at rbdav@comcast.net.

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